Vernon Fire Rescue to get new specialized drone costing up to $50,000

“It’s a tethered drone. We could fly it in controlled air space. So if there’s a fire happening at an apartment building, we could deploy the drone 150 feet in the air, 200 feet in the air, in a controlled airspace, and it would give a bird’s eye view of the area,” Lind explained.

“This specific [drone] we’re looking at is in use by other fire services and other emergency services and they’re finding them to be quite valuable.”

Lind added there would be no specialized training or skills required to fly it, and it would also mean the scene of a fire could be surveyed without having to send a firefighter up on a ladder truck, potentially exposing them to hazardous smoke and fumes.

He also stated the specialized drone VFRS is looking at is purpose-built to fly around fires safely.

Meanwhile, the EV would cost up to $69,000 and the electric vehicle fire suppression equipment would cost up to $80,000.

Lind explained the need for the fire suppression equipment, which includes a fire blanket that can be stretched over an EV on fire to cut off oxygen supply and put the fire out, as well as a water system that can be pushed underneath the vehicle and spray water up at the battery from below.

“Electric vehicles have lithium-ion batteries that are very hard to extinguish and they require a tremendous amount of water,” Lind told council.

“So a traditional car, we can easily pull up with a standard fire engine with on board water, we can attach to a hydrant, we can extinguish a fire within 10 minutes or less. With these batteries and these types of fires in electric vehicles, they burn very hot so you end up needing to shuttle a lot of water in over several hours to try to extinguish the fire.”

He also stated the equipment could be used in enclosed spaces such as parkades and garages.

The electric vehicle the fire department wants to purchase would be used by the FireSmart officer, so it could be a light-duty vehicle as it would not need to haul around equipment.

Councillor Kari Gares acknowledged the need for the electric vehicle fire suppression equipment as there have been increasing numbers of EV’s on the road and there are provincial mandates to roll out more of those types of vehicles in the future.

Council voted unanimously in favour of the requests.

Speaking with Vernon Matters following the meeting, Mayor Victor Cumming acknowledged that though the price tag for the drone is high, it is a specialized tool.

“These are drones that are on cable and are able to go over top of a fire and manage high heat and a number of other things,” Cumming said.

“It’s not a normal gift from one of our tech stores for a few hundred dollars. No, that is not what this is.”

Cumming added the equipment to extinguish fires in EVs is expensive but is needed for “limiting the impact of a fire of an electric vehicle inside a garage or in a parkade beside others is very important.”

Vernon’s mayor added it makes sense to approve a light-duty EV for the FireSmart officer to use when visiting residents and recommending actions be taken on properties.

“We have someone doing FireSmart and they need a vehicle, and it makes sense that it be an electric vehicle because it has the lowest long-range cost,” Cumming said, adding it would be a light duty EV and not a “fancy electric pick-up.”

Budget deliberations will be held in December.

by Liam Verster

Vernon Fire Rescue to get new specialized drone costing up to $50,000

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